Conversations About Our Scholarly Lives

Wessam el-Meligi, Classics, will present "Tahrirized: The Dreams and The Nightmares of Egyptian Academia and the January 25th Revolution." On Jan 25, 2011, “Police Day,” liberal activists in Cairo, Egypt planned a flash mob for Tahrir square to protest police brutality. Two days later, the protests turned into a revolution and the entire country was “Tahrirized.” Almost 18 months later, thousands of young activists are dead, in jail, or under military trial. During this time, faculty members have been secretly blamed for 'poisoning young minds’ especially scholars in the humanities and foreign languages. This talk narrates the experiences of one academic who lived the fight between the dream of the Tahrir chants of “Bread, Freedom, Human Dignity,” and the nightmare of military and religious fascism,--a fight that continues, significantly but less visibly, in university classrooms. All Faculty are welcome. Lunch will be provided.